


concrete flower

by seraphecda



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, heavily reliant on FFVII canon, the ships are really vaguely kinda just There
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7051504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphecda/pseuds/seraphecda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud thought he'd lost everything he'd fought so desperately for. Edge, Midgar, Nibelheim... it's all gone in the wake of invading Heartless that had razed Gaia into nothing. His world had joined the forgotten ranks of countless other destroyed worlds and there was no going back.</p><p>But this world, however splintered it may be, has Aerith. And Cloud will do anything to make sure it stays that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so FFVII lately that I can't even write a straight-up, KH-canon only fic.
> 
> (that remake hype tho!)

Cloud loved how the name Sephiroth felt on his lips, the sound drawing back into his mouth from his teeth. It was the kind of name he wanted to say twenty times, and then twenty times more, until it felt like he wasn’t saying anything at all.

But that was then, when he was a boy dreaming of the big city, living in the small town of Nibelheim in the countryside, back when he was a bumpkin in every facet of the word. Now he was the equivalent of darkness incarnate, with bright blue mako eyes and a skeletal, bat-like wing protruding from his back with veins that clutch into his shoulder blade. A soulless body in the world of the living, chasing the shadows of dreams long since shattered.

_ Sephiroth. _

Now it's just a hiss on his tongue, an utterance before Cloud swings his buster sword, aimed straight at Sephiroth’s face to score a mark like the one across the bridge of Leon’s nose -- except deeper, enough to kill, enough to rid himself of the silver-haired devil for good.

( _ It’s no good, Cloud. You still aspire to me. _ )

He didn’t, not anymore.

The hotel in Traverse Town’s District One is fairly big. It’s a place that expects a lot of guests, a lot of people who need new lodgings while they struggle with loss and try to carve out new lives for themselves. The rooms are nice, the kind that remind guests of home, wherever they’re from, with soft sheets and large square windows with flower boxes that bloom if you’re patient enough to wait and watch.

It reminds Cloud of the room he had in Edge, above the new Seventh Heaven, where Tifa wanted to build their life together.

He doesn’t know if feeling at home is a blessing or a curse when he hasn’t seen Tifa since they first landed in Radiant Garden.

(But he’s seen Aerith, the girl who provided the hotel with the flower seeds and showed the owner how to take care of them, the girl who still haunts his nightmares, but she’s here. Alive.)

Something about the timeline is off. Yuffie appeared younger than she should’ve been when they first landed in Radiant Garden, the image of the girl trying to prove her strength during the Wutai War that she couldn’t even remember. Tifa is the one he knew from Edge, after Meteor, after Geostigma, the one who wanted to build a life with him along with Marlene and Denzel. Aerith… she’s alive, even though she was already dead. She doesn’t seem to remember him at all, but she still treats him the same, teases him the same…

She doesn’t make sense.

But what happens to destroyed worlds never makes sense. Everything about it is unnatural, born from darkness and taboo desire. Thinking about it is too difficult to process. Thinking about the ones who didn’t survive is even harder. It’s better to just accept that nothing is the way it was. Time moves differently for all of them, with memories that cling to them like blood they can never wash their hands of.

Cloud leans back against the headboard of the hotel bed, remembers the night he stayed at Aerith’s house below Midgar, the time he’d been told to leave in the middle of the night.

(So much has happened since then, he wonders if she remembers any of it.)


	2. Act One

“Area’s clear,” Leon says, loosening his grip on his sword.

“Nice. We done for the day? Aerith said she’s baking cookies,” Yuffies says conversationally, like they hadn’t just been fending off a hoard of Heartless. She starts picking out the shuriken that had slotted into the brick walls during the fight. “And I’m super hungry,” she adds, stacking them between her palms.

“Yeah,” Leon says quietly, eyes dropping to the remnants of shadows on his sword that disappear with the breeze. It’s still creepy how the Heartless puffed away in black smoke, stinging Yuffie’s nose like acrid char. She never did understand the Heartless, made of darkness. Bitter, probably, that they don't have hearts.

If you ask Yuffie, hearts aren’t all what they’re cracked up to be. They give you weird squishy emotions. They’re confusing. They might beat and keep you alive, but… She watches Leon from the corner of her eye and wonders when that itching feeling underneath her skin will stop bothering her.

(If she had to pick between being her and being a Heartless, she knows what she’d pick.)

“Come on, I can smell chocolate chips from here like they’re cooling in the window--”

“Aerith wouldn’t leave the window open,” Leon deadpans.

Yuffie smacks him on the back. “You know what I mean, Squall.”

“Leon.”

“They’re calling out to me,” she whines.

Leon’s lips twitch. “Okay. Let’s go.”

He shakes the remnants of shadows off his sword and starts back to the hideout. Yuffie follows, eyes trailing the dark wisps, wondering how long it’ll take for them to spawn back, wreak havoc in their Districts again.

“Wait,” she says suddenly, stopping in her tracks, eyes darting around. “Someone’s here.”

Leon frowns at her. “No one ever comes to District Three except us.”

“No, I-- wait. They’re gone.”

He purses his lips, thoughtful, before shaking his head. “Probably your imagination.”

Yuffie doesn’t think so. It’s happened too many times this week to just be her imagination, but it’s the best excuse they have so she pastes on a grin like it never happened. “Race you back to the house!” she shouts, rushing past him.

(He wins. Cheater.)

~

Yuffie looks as old as Cloud knew her to be. Awkward and gangly, with the same odd penchant for falling miserably for older brooding loner types.

(He can tell, the way she watches Leon’s back when fighting Heartless, the way he’s always in her line of sight, the way she talks at him incessantly so he’ll look at her, and the way her breath hitches in the middle of her rushed sentences when he finally does.)

She’s also just as perceptive.

He narrowly manages to duck away before her eyes can spot him, hides his presence, the aura of death that clings to him no matter how much he tries to dispel it, to blend in like he’s not dead of his own will. Back against the white brick of the tower, heart thumping in his chest, he wonders if he’ll ever let them know he’s still around, that he didn’t just disappear out of the blue.

(But Yuffie and Leon visit the Coliseum sometimes. It’s only a matter of time before they realize that’s where he’s been whenever he’s not chasing after past demons.)

Cloud jumps down from the tower, cape swishing behind him through the alleyways back to District One where the hotel stands. He’s careful not to let Cid see him from his shop front on the street, Gummi Ship parts in wooden crates that take up a full wall of the route to District Two’s large, protective doors.

“Cloud?”

He stops breathing. She’s not supposed to be here.

His wing clamps down, flush against his back, and his cape flurries down to hide it.

She stares up at him, a smile stretching her lips. She’s warm, she’s welcoming (she’s Aerith, and she won’t look away).

He’s as still as a gargoyle on the roof of the accessories shop.

“I thought you’d never come back,” she says, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her he’s not, that this is just a break from his too-tight leash, one he took without notice, one that’ll end when the next tournament listing is posted at the Coliseum.

“Not for long,” he says instead, because it’s hard not to answer, not to turn tail and run, when she looks so expectant.

“Always running off,” she chides with a laugh. “You haven’t changed at all.”

What part of his timeline is she from? What does she remember? Has she remembered more since Radiant Garden?

“Come down from there, Cloud! Want something to eat?”

She still says his name the same way she did after the Geostigma era. The way she consoled him from the Lifestream, making his name sound solid, tangible, like he meant something.

“I… can’t.”

There’s no excuse on his tongue, just a heaviness that he hasn’t felt since he first took on Hades’ deal, since he first--

“Oh come on, you can’t spare a couple minutes to say hi to everyone? I even baked cookies today!”

This is surreal.

“I--”

It’s like she can sense his hesitation, the reluctance to leave the conversation and just swoop away into Traverse Town’s perpetual night like he never saw her, alive, with a young face that he recognized but was long past.

“Everything’s… alright,” she interrupts with a smile, the one she had from the slums while selling flowers. “You aren’t alone, Cloud. You don’t have to act like you are.”

Except that he is, and she’s a mish-mash of his memories of her. A flower girl, a determined fighter, the last Ancient…

She reaches her hand up toward him, a gesture of kind-heartedness more than anything because he’s still too high up for her. They’re on the other side of the building from where Cid is, but Cloud doesn’t know how Cid hasn’t heard them yet. How no one has paid them any attention yet.

“Come on, Cloud. Everyone’s waiting.”

Cloud closes his eyes, bright mako blue irises that remind him every day of his past, of his failures. He shouldn’t be here. They all have a good thing going here without him. He doesn’t want to ruin it. Not like he ruins everything else.

“I’m a bad luck charm,” he says, like it’ll change her mind.

She laughs, but he’s already gone.

He shouldn’t have come.

~

Leon opens the door to their apartment, their barely cozy, flower-ridden place that smells of Aerith’s latest baking adventure. He’s barely out of breath, the jerk, but Yuffie catches up within seconds, panting like she ran a marathon.

“That tired?” he asks, and she waves one of her hands flippantly as she leans against the wall, breathing hard.

“Nah, I’m just dead from all the Heartless! I definitely took out more than you did, Squall--”

“Leon. And you definitely didn’t.”

“Whateeeever, let’s eat!!”

She pushes herself off the wall and into the apartment. Aerith is inside, arranging another bouquet of flowers in a vase on the table. A plate of cookies sits next to it, and it smells even better inside than it did outside. Leon nods at her and she smiles wanly.

“Hey guys,” Aerith greets them.

“Hey Aerith!” Yuffie greets enthusiastically, pulling out a chair and crashing into it. “How was your day?” She grabs at the plate of cookies and pulls the whole thing toward herself.

Leon doesn’t expect what Aerith says next: “I saw Cloud today.”

Yuffie stands up suddenly, chair screeching back on the wood and nearly tipping over if Leon hadn’t caught it in time. “I knew it!” she exclaims. “I knew I felt something, didn’t I say so Leon??” She whips around to face him, crumbs falling from her fingers as she gestures at him.

“You said you felt something. Not that it was Clo--”

“IT WAS CLOUD. This explains every weird feeling I’ve had this week! Like, I don’t know!” She waves her arms. “Like, uhm, urgh jeez Cloud… Why’s he hiding from us??”

“Or is he watching over us? Defeating the Heartless was a little…  _ too _ easy today,” Leon ponders. “Did you talk to him, Aerith?”

She just shrugs. “Kinda? He… kept looking at me. Like I was a ghost,” she explains. “It was strange, but I invited him back here to see everyone. He looked hesitant, like he wasn’t allowed to. And then he flew off quicker than I could say chocobo!”

Leon frowns. “That’s…”

“Cloud for you,” a fourth voice interrupts, and all three heads snap to the doorway. Tifa Lockhart. “I thought I followed a trail here, but I guess Cloud is gone all over again.” Her face scrunches up in annoyance. “I was so close this time, too!”

“Tifa!” Yuffie runs up to hug her. “I missed you! Where the heck have you been?”

“Around. On a wild goose chase, it seems,” Tifa says, wrapping her arms around Yuffie’s waist. “How’s protecting Traverse Town going?”

“It’s going, that’s for sure,” Leon says.

Yuffie nods, letting go. “Yeah! And I’m totally winning in kill-count, by the way!”

Tifa laughs. “Good job!” she says, ruffling her hair as Leon rolls his eyes. “So, while I’m here… Can we talk for a sec Leon?”

She gives him a look, one that he supposes he should understand, but just doesn’t because as much as she’s a comrade here in this mess of worlds, he never knew her on his own world. He never knew any of them like they knew each other.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, knowing at the very least that Yuffie can’t overhear whatever it is that Tifa has to say. “There’s a cafe in District One that has decent coffee. You look like you need some.”

“Definitely. Let’s go.”

~

As soon as they exit the apartment, Tifa finds herself face to face with more Heartless. Leon sighs beside her, a put-upon sound of annoyance as Tifa punches one into smoke and roundhouse kicks another off the ledge.

“These guys really don’t let up, do they?” she says with a laugh.

“I thought we already cleared this area,” Leon grimaces.

“They respawn fast these days,” Tifa says as they run for the gate of District One. “I… think I might know why.”

She can feel Leon’s curious gaze, but she doesn’t say anything more. For once, she appreciates his silence, his willingness to wait as opposed to Yuffie’s demands that always expect an immediate response.

District One is safe, as usual. It’s still weird, how the Heartless never show up here, but they’ve accepted it as a blessing and a welcome reprieve. Leon leads the way to the cafe. It’s cute, a little bistro type place on the bottom floor of the inn. They sit down and the waitress takes their orders quickly before leaving them in silence again.

Tifa frowns, fingers weaving together under her chin as she thinks on her words.

“Cloud is still here. He doesn’t leave just because he’s been found,” Tifa says with absolute certainty. “He just finds another place to hide.”

“Yuffie’s been sensing a weird presence for a week and we only just found out it was him,” Leon says. “You’re saying Aerith didn’t spook him off?”

Tifa sighs, leaning back into her chair. “I don’t know. Maybe she did, but I… he’s still here. I just know he is.” She fiddles with the straps of her suspenders. “Like a sense. I think it has something to do with the weird Heartless movements too. They go after strong hearts, but they trail after the darkness, you know?”

“You think Cloud’s the reason they’re respawning so quickly?”

She shrugs. “Maybe. I… think he got himself into some trouble,” she admits. “I just don’t know what kind, and it’s frustrating because I can’t even find him and pin him down long enough to get some answers.”

The coffee comes and Tifa downs half of it before it has the chance to cool down.

Leon regards her curiously as he cradles his own between his palms. “You need a break,” he concludes.

“Probably. But…”

The silence stretches, moment after moment, and Leon shifts in his seat. “You can tell me,” he finally says. “I won’t tell the others.”

“I’ve seen him. At the coliseum.” Her brow furrows. “I mean, like. I think I’ve seen him. It looks like him, blonde, red cape, buster-style sword… I don’t know. But, whoever I saw, they had a wing.”

“A wing?”

“Yeah, like. Like a bat’s. Skeletal, no feathers, as wide as he is tall…” Tifa trails off, in thought as she stares at her mug.

“I could do some recon,” Leon suggests. “It’s not hard for me to get to the Coliseum. Yuffie and I go sometimes to earn some extra gil for rent.”

Tifa nods. “Yeah, good idea,” she says. “He’ll respond better to you,” she adds softly.

“I’ll go this week. Arrange a flight with Cid and check it out.”

Tifa nods, silent. Almost hesitant.

“Anything else I need to know?”

She pauses, frowning. “Cloud told me once that he’s tired of fighting, but that he can’t seem to stop.”

“I could say the same for us here. The Heartless never let up.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t mean like that. It’s… complicated? Cloud has always had something to fight toward. Reasons keep piling up and stopping never seems like an option. He fights to move forward. And if he’s at the Coliseum, then it can’t just be the unending Heartless that he’s fighting against.”

Leon nods. “I’ll try to get some answers, but no promises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw FFVII + Leon. He must feel so left out and awkward sometimes, poor thing.


	3. Act Two

Cloud stares at the stars that litter Traverse Town’s perpetual night sky like a log of worlds that haven’t yet been obliviated by Heartless. It’s unnatural, just like everything else about these worlds.

He’d been getting better at evading death back on Gaia, where the cycle of life and death kept throwing him back at Sephiroth and his clones and the gruesome aftermaths of Shinra’s Science Division.

He was finally getting better at evading his friends in this star-ridden maze of worlds. He kinda blew that one, though. Mako-enhanced senses were a blessing and a curse, a double-edged sword that made eavesdropping too easy even from the roof of the inn.

Tifa had found him.

He closes his eyes and wonders how long it’ll take for Leon to find him too.

They know now, though. The Coliseum has always been safe as a hiding place by technicality. He was protected there, by Hades, by the virtue of practically anonymous entry, by the wing that clutched into his shoulder blade and made him unrecognizable. And if he ever saw Cid’s gummi ship, he’d opt out of the tournaments for the day.

He’d be opting out for the next week, maybe even two, if Leon was going to be snooping around for info.

Cloud sighs, takes one last look at the stars with his back pressed against shingles of the roof, and ducks down and through the window of his room, ruffling the windowbox full of flowers.

~

It’s not cool, Yuffie decides.

It’s not cool at all.

She glares after Squall as he turns away, an overnight pack held over his shoulder, and walks out the door without another word.

(She’s not a child anymore, not by standard definitions, and certainly not after any of the crazy shit that’s happened, but she wants to stomp her feet and yell and scream and beg him not to go, not without her, because they’re a team and he’s not allowed to just  _ go solo _ all of a sudden without even discussing it with her and--)

“Coward,” Yuffie mutters instead, turning on her heel and walking straight to her room.

She slams the door, because even though he’s not here anymore to hear the angry reverberations, it makes her feel slightly (just slightly) better.

~

Sora stares up at the Coliseum, the statues of Hercules that frame the main gate, and grins.

Getting stronger was tough when all the Heartless were becoming a cakewalk, and Riku… Sora’s grin falters. Riku wasn’t just strong. He’d always been faster, more on the ball, able to use his body to his advantage while Sora needed to use all the tricks in the book, every bit of the stage they were given to figure out his victory (and even then it was difficult, even then when it was all fun and games).

He grips his hands into determined fists. “I gotta take this on my own.”

“Your own?”

Sora whips around, surprised to hear such a familiar voice. “Leon!”

Leon’s exiting the bay, another lady following him. “How’ve you been, Sora?”

A guilty smile plays on his lips. “Um… could be better?”

“Hey Leon! Who’s this?”

She’s taller, almost taller than Leon, with red gloves and boots and an elbow-guard that tells Sora she’s here to fight too.

“Oh, Sora. Meet Tifa. An acquaintance of mine,” Leon introduces belatedly. “We’re here on some reconnaissance. Tifa, Sora, the keeper of the Keyblade.”

Sora tries not to flinch.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sora!” Tifa says, shaking his hand. “Though I wish we could meet when we were both a little less troubled.”

Sora rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “That easy to tell, huh?”

“Your heart’s very strong, but it’s also very open.”

“You’re starting to sound like Aerith,” Leon comments.

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Not really.”

Sora laughs. “And he says you’re just acquaintances. So, what kind of reconnaissance? Maybe I can help.”

A distraction would be good, if only for a day full of grinding through Heartless anyway. He looks hopefully up at Leon and Tifa.

“You come here fairly often, Sora?” Tifa asks.

“Yeah. Every so often to practice without penalty. Phil works us pretty hard, and the tournaments give us some pretty useful prizes.”

“Have you ever seen someone with spiky blonde hair and a red cape?”

“Does he also have a wing?”

Tifa grins and snaps her fingers. “That’s the one! What’s his name on the roster?”

“Hmm… Well, the roster’s always changing depending on the tournament, and people are allowed to use pseudonyms,” Sora says. “But… this guy. His name’s always blank, but the announcer always says ‘Cloud,’ I think. Yeah. Cloud. That sounds right.”

Tifa’s grin is positively beaming at this point. “He here! He’s actually here, we’ve found him--”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Leon says with a frown. “He’s never been around when I’m here with Yuffie. I wonder if he drops out when he sees Cid’s ship.”

“You know,” Tifa starts, already sounding deflated, “he probably does. He’s a bit too careful like that.”

“Hey, maybe I’ll go back to Traverse Town with you guys and we can head back in my ship tomorrow!” Sora suggests. “I haven’t seen the gang there in a while and then he won’t see Cid’s ship when we land tomorrow.”

“You sure? Don’t you have stuff to do?” Leon asks.

“Train with me! And maybe Yuffie can join us too. After all, I’m only here to grind anyway.”

Tifa and Leon exchange a look and Tifa shrugs. “Why not? I’d like some girl time with Aerith too.”

“Then it’s settled,” Leon says. “We’ll head back tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this only took forever to write for some reason. hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> cool tidbit: the name of this doc on my gdrive is "one flies away (and gets dragged back)." it's a joke on one of the verses from the loveless poem in ffvii: crisis core


	4. Act Three

The Coliseum can hardly be considered a safe place, but Cloud doesn’t feel the tug of memories here, of the consequences of his actions, or even of Tifa’s expectant noose around his neck, always demanding he let her in, that she can help him, that they can go through it all together and come out unscathed.

_“Is it a memory, or us?”_

But she doesn’t remember the Reunion.

He shakes the lingering shadows from his bandaged sword and stares out at the empty stage. Another round cleared. Another promise to Hades fulfilled.

It was safe to come out, to play in the tournaments, because he’d seen their their distinctive gummi ship leave the Coliseum’s world earlier that day. As if in forfeit that his name wasn’t on the morning’s roster.

It was evening now, the sun beginning to sink low over the horizon, painting the circle of sky above the open Coliseum in strokes of muted pinks and violets and oranges. The next round is about to begin and the his opponents, more Heartless, appear in a cloud of mist before him. The announcer barely rings for the start of the match before Cloud is already dashing, half of them out from the first swing of his bandaged buster sword alone.

It’s not the same one, the one that held Zack’s dreams and honour.

He wouldn’t use that one here, for Hades, for someone else’s schemes when he had no dreams, no honour remaining as a cold-blooded dweller of the Underworld.

(Cloud remembers the deal, the apparition of Aerith in the Underworld’s swirling acidic ether and Hades’ sharp-toothed grin that had him feeling like he fell into a trap. He remembers, and he doesn’t regret it.)

~

The waterways of Traverse Town were great for practicing. Much better than the streets of the Districts, which had Heartless lurking around every corner, waiting for an ambush. No, the waterways were a safe space that had enough room for Leon to swing his gunblade around without worrying about anything other than the sound of metal slicing wind and a bit of water in his shoes.

The waterways of Traverse Town is where Leon takes Sora once they land.

“No use in wasting any time, right?” Sora had said, but when Leon looks at him now, soaked with water and panting hard, he wonders why he refuses to use his Keyblade.

Leon frowns. “Done already?”

Yuffie, who’s been sitting on the platform and sulking for the better part of the last hour, pumps her fist in the air. “Kick his ass, Sora!” she demands. “Kick it hard!”

Leon rolls his eyes. She’s been mad ever since they landed, and he’s not looking forward to having to talk about it later.

Sora finally gets up to his feet again, leaning heavily on the hollow wooden bat he insists on using as a weapon. It’s shoddily crafted into a key with rope and spare pieces of driftwood, but it looks like it’s about to fall apart.

“Bring it, Leon!”

Leon shoulders his gunblade. “I don’t think so.”

Sora’s expression drops. “What, why?” he complains.

Leon stares at him for a moment, sizing him up, and shakes his head. “We’re heading back for the day. You’re gonna get a cold if we keep going like this. Plus your weapon’s gonna shatter if it takes another hit.”

Sora has the audacity to actually look sheepish on that last point. Squall frowns.

“Why won’t you use the Keyblade?”

Sora’s back straightens out his his stance, shoulders rolled back and makeshift weapon clenched in a fist. “I can’t keep relying on it,” he says determinedly.

“So I should stop using my gunblade and try something else just because I’m relying on it?” Leon asks. “Is that the logic you’re going for? Because I thought I chose this weapon to specialize in it, to know I can have my own back with something familiar that will never fail me.”

Sora bites the inside of his cheek. “Well,” he starts softly, “my Keyblade…”

He sets the wooden weapon down next to Yuffie and holds out his dominant hand, scrunching up his eyes in concentration. Leon expects the Keyblade to materialize, but a whole minute ticks past and… nothing.

Sora opens his eyes, frown sinking on his lips. “It failed me. Or, it chose someone over me.”

“Who?”

The kid looks absolutely heartbroken when he says, “Riku.”

~

Aerith hums idly as she tends to the flowers that have taken over her room. Vines crawl across her bookcase, down to the ground where terracotta planters filled with flowers bloom along with fives types of cacti that hang in terrariums up the side of her window frame.

“You must miss it, huh,” Tifa says, settling down on her bed. “Radiant Garden.”

Aerith sighs something soft and airy, shooting Tifa a smile. “Sometimes,” she says quietly, as if to not disturb the flowers as she checks the soil and adjusts the stems. “I miss the fields. What do you miss?”

She wants to say everything, from mako-tinted skies and the feel of rain on her skin, to the raw stench of oil fields and restless nights in airship cabins. But Aerith doesn’t remember anything before Radiant Garden. Not like Tifa can.

“The gelato place,” she says instead, with a smile she forces up a little too much. But if it looks fake, Aerith doesn’t say anything.

“That place was amazing! The pistachio flavour was my favourite.”

“Right? So good,” Tifa agrees. “Still haven’t found a world out there with gelato that can compete!”

The gummi ship Cid lent her is in the repair shop for upgrades, but if Cloud really is at the Coliseum… she won’t need it much longer. So many worlds, so little time, and almost nothing to show for it.

“I heard there’s a world out there where genies who grant wishes exist,” Aerith says. “Have you ever come across it?”

She has, but… “What would you wish for if you met one?”

“To be back at Radiant Garden with everyone! What about you?”

Tifa once chased that trail, a genie who could grant wishes, three wishes, and she knows exactly what she’d wish for. For Shinra to have never existed. For everyone’s worlds to be restored. For Cloud to be back at her side.

“A happy ending,” she says instead. When Aerith glances her way, a question in her eyes, Tifa just smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there was going to be more, but i figured i'd leave it for act four since this is more of a bridge :3 hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	5. Act Four

Hades is a cool, collected, calm aura of death that floats around the outskirts of the Coliseum in a thick, dark fog. His voice is a smooth, velvet tundra of commands and nonchalance as he sits on his throne, deep in the caves of the Underworld.

Cloud adjusts the mantle of his cape, the blood-red thing that rests upon his shoulders like a weight of responsibility, and frowns up at the throne. (Vincent wanted to die, immortality a curse more than a blessing, and it was the only thing Cloud had left of him.)

Hades likes to hear himself talk. To trick his way in and out of anything and everything and manipulate lost souls with a flick of his wrist and the right words on his tongue. He’s been talking for awhile now, but Cloud has already heard it all. The mission, the reminders, the consequences.

“Are we done?” he asks during a pause. He can see his breath in the cold dampness that coats the Underworld.

Hades smiles at him with thin lips. “I never got to ask you… how was your little vacation?”

“It happened. It’s over.”

“Ahh, so tight-lipped is my little mercenary,” Hades says softly. “That’s fine. I don’t need to pry to know you were checking up on the pretty flower girl. How is she?”

“Happy.”

“And you?”

Cloud stays silent, eyes still as a lake and hard as a glacier.

Hades smile widens. “Yes, of course. So are you ready for today’s tournament? I’m expecting great things from you.”

~

Yuffie insists on going with them to the Coliseum. She does everything short of a temper tantrum to make sure she gets to climb aboard Sora’s gummi ship. And when she does, Tifa knocks her out with a quick sleep spell.

She wakes up when they’re at their destination, groggy and grumpy, but still victorious.

“So fill me in!” she says, running to catch up with Leon as they all make their way toward the gigantic gates of the Coliseum. “What’s our plan?”

“We sign up for the tournament,” he says shortly.

“And then we fight our way up to his rank,” Tifa adds. “He won’t come out till he has to.”

There’s something familiar about that, Yuffie thinks, but it’s a ghost of a thought that she can barely grasp. “What’s that mean?” she asks, poking Tifa incessantly (because clearly Leon isn’t interested in divulging anything more).

Tifa glances at her, and there’s something like worry that flashes in her eyes right before everything is replaced by her usual warm smile. “Cloud… he hates fighting. But he can’t seem to stop.”

Yuffie frowns, glancing at Sora in case he has anything to add. But Sora says nothing, having been silent ever since they got back to the apartment last night, barely eating his dinner and heading to bed early. But he sticks next to Leon, a few paces ahead, determination set in his eyes like hard stones.

“Why can’t he?” Yuffie asks. “Wouldn’t it be nice to stop lugging around that huge sword? It looks so _heavy_.”

“It’s… not that easy,” Tifa says. It looks like she wants to say more, but her lips stay shut and Yuffie figures this isn’t a good time to poke and prod.

Sora and Leon are already up at the front, talking to administration about signing up for the tournament. The one that never stops, that goes on, forever, eternally, because the Coliseum exists for glory in battle. But Yuffie feels for her Shuriken, the one set firmly against her back, a familiar weight, and wonders if that’s really what Cloud fights for.

The memories get fuzzier the more she tried to dig. It’s why she doesn’t, but she can’t help the niggling feeling in the back of her head that this is important. She digs further. She remembers a red cape and bright mako eyes.

And...

“Hey Yuffie, you need to sign,” Leon says, and she jumps as his gloved hand touches her bare shoulder.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, taking the clipboard from him. When their eyes lock, shivers run down her spine.

“You feeling okay?” he asks.

The gleaming black barrel of a gun.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” she says, taking the quill too and scribbling out her name. “Totally dandy.”

There’s no flourish, no cursive, just a messy scrawl that looks childish below the box where Leon signed his own name in clear blocked letters, over the box where Tifa signed in thin, slanted cursive.

Yuffie can’t shake the feeling that she’s missing something.

One of the Coliseum attendants leads them to a waiting room, circling underground along the wide walls of the main Coliseum. It’s dark and dank, but light fills the halls from lit sconces. It’s creepy, shadows overlapping shadows, and she feels like she’s been somewhere similar. Like a mansion…

The door to their room creaks open and Yuffie smothers a frightened squeak. The attendant lets them in and leaves.

Sora flops down onto one of the couches and Tifa sighs, leaning against the wall by the door.

“We’ve got about an hour before we start,” Leon says, already rifling through his pack. “We may as well eat.”

“Good idea,” Tifa says.

Sora says nothing.

(Yuffie wonders how the flight went, how forced the smiles were in order to fuel the engine long enough to get to this world. It would’ve been easier with her onboard if she hadn’t been knocked out! Or… maybe not...)

Leon sets out containers filled with food on the table slotted next to the wall and Yuffie hears her stomach growl as he opens them up to reveal Aerith’s cooking. She’s the first at the table, about to dig in when Leon speaks up again.

“Tifa, you’re gonna pair up with Sora,” he says. “Yuffie, I think you should sit this one out.”

“ _What??_ ” Yuffie and Sora demand simultaneously.

“No, no way am I sitting this out!” Yuffie says, chair screeching back as she stands and slams her hand on the table. “You can’t make me!”

Leon grimaces. “You are. You’re probably still not feeling well from the flight here--”

“I’m _fine_.”

“Then why do you keep spacing out?” he demands, “Why have you been so quiet today?”

“Because,” Yuffie starts, then stops. “B-because, I…”

“Leon, stop,” Tifa says, coming to Yuffie’s side and putting her hands on her shoulders protectively. “I understand your concern, but Yuffie has survived more than you know.”

_What?_

“She is fully capable of fighting here with or without you. As for partnering up with Sora,” Tifa continues. “Isn’t he the keeper of the Keyblade? Why is it necessary?”

Leon gives Sora a pointed look. “Wanna tell ‘em?”

There’s a long moment before he speaks. “I lost the Keyblade. I don’t control it anymore.”

“Then if anything, Sora should be sitting this out. He doesn’t have a weapon,” she says with a frown. “Just partner up with Yuffie like you always do, Leon. You’re a good team, and I’m fine going solo. We'll have a better chance of pinning Cloud down that way.”

Tifa levels a look at Leon and it’s a full thirty seconds before he breaks. “Fine. But Yuffie,” he addresses her, “if you don’t feel well, no one will blame you if you tap out.”

~

Cloud’s shoulders ache. Half of the bandages along his Buster have been torn off by high-level Wight Knights, but that just makes the blade sharper. He cuts them down in one fell swoop, diving into a charged Braver that rips them back into skittering shadows.

The empty field stares back at him.

The next match is a Rare Truffle, which just means bouncing the thing as many times as possible. Cloud turns his blade flat and scoops it up.

He stops counting around fifty, but it’s over soon enough. He catches the Matsutake Rank the Truffle gives him  and pockets it for later. It’d probably get him something nice at the Accessory Shop.

The announcer calls out the next match.

_“Welcome to the field, Tifa Lockhart!”_

Mako eyes widen and he grabs the mantle of his cape, pulling it up higher, covering even more of his face in pure panic. _Didn’t they leave??_

She smiles as she climbs the steps to the platform, sets into her stance with her fists up, completely fearless at the sight of his massive sword and skeletal wing, and launches at him when the countdown is finished.

“Found you, Cloud.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tifa is such an HBIC and I love her <3


End file.
